As the longest serving principal of the school, I took on the job of writing the full school history. It has taken me about ten years so far as delved into PTA records, financial statements, minutes of School Committee meetings and the like. Previous principals have been very like me as I found very good record keeping – even the Attendance records of all children since 1948! I can’t share the full history in this magazine, or even the highlights of each year but I would like to give a ‘summary’ of 75 years of excellence.
Before 1948: As the first Garden City in South Africa, the suburb of Pinelands was created in a pine forest from 1921. Pinelands Primary School was founded in 1931 as the first school in the suburb.
1948: Our school was founded as a whites only bilingual school in the northern end of Pinelands mainly for soldiers returning from the Second World War. Originally called Pinelands Primary Number 2, the first official principal was J H G Mckenzie, started with five female staff members and ninety-four pupils: sixty-three English and thirty-one Afrikaans.
Pieter-Dirk Uys was one of the first pupils and his mom and dad wrote the school song and the music!
1950: Four classrooms were added to the seven existing, ones, and a tennis court added in 1951. Four hundred and thirty pupils attended the school by then.
1956: All the Afrikaans children left the school to create Laerskool Oude Molen, on the grounds currently inhabited by Vista Nova High School.
1966: Pinehurst Primary was created, under the name of Extension 6 School!
1968 – 1973: Henward Honiball was principal and during his time the library was built and then extended. Cape Town was experiencing a drought and the field took strain because hoses weren’t allowed! School fees were R1,50 per term!
1974 – 1976: Selwyn Hall was appointed principal and the first school magazine was written. The school pool, extensions to the playground and off-street parking were built. Selwyn was a keen sportsman and the sports at the school took off; some were netball, rugby, cricket, swimming, tennis, tennisette and athletics. He was also good at promoting the cultural aspects of school and the first play was performed and music, choir, drama and poetry teams were entered into local Eisteddfods. Several pupils from this era went on to perform at national level in cricket, gymnastics, swimming, tennis and hockey!
1977 – 1996: Bob Shepherd continued the excellent work from before. Most of the sport teams were still unbeatable, the finances of the school were healthy and the school building was revamped. Soccer was introduced as a sport in 1988. The cultural side of the school took off, with many children involved in music, speech and drama, ballet and chess. Pupil numbers were down though, with only an average of two hundred and fifty pupils per year. School fees in 1983 were R12 per family per term! Aftercare was started in 1987 because the economic downtown now required moms to work too!
PNPS joined other previously white schools to extend enrolment to all races in 1990 which added numbers to the pupil population. Three hundred and sixty-four pupils were enrolled in 1992 and school fees were R720 per pupil. isiXhosa lessons were started that year too! Water restrictions again affected the school field in 1994. In the final two years of his principalship, education was in the doldrums, with many teachers ready to leave education. This resulted in a mass exodus of teachers all around the country in 1996, and included about five staff from PNPS, including Bob, the deputy and HOD of the Foundation Phase in December 1996.
1997 – 2023: I took over in 1997 with seventeen white class teachers, three white music teachers, three white aftercare staff, one and a half white admin staff and the only staff of colour were in cleaning and maintenance! Four hundred and twenty-five pupils were enrolled, with most of them white. Teacher aides were introduced in 1998 and also that year the first teacher of colour, Rose-Anne Lawrence, was appointed!
Now in 2024 the school has about seventy staff with more than fifty percent staff of colour! The school has continued to flourish academically, introducing new subjects like computers, technology, woodwork, needlework, coding and robotics, horticulture and creative and talented. The learning support department grew from one teacher who came two mornings a week, to a full complement of about ten staff, providing alternate and individual learning opportunities to all pupils. The uniform was changed in 2003 to create a more South African informal, gender-neutral uniform.
I also introduced animal ‘husbandry’, safe places around the school, started a Reggio Emilia inspired preschool, created a healthy tuckshop, the Snax Café, and changed the ‘discipline’ strategy to narrative therapy and restorative practices. Technology was introduced and welcomed everywhere - from a computer room with stand-alone PCs to one-to-one devices, tablets, laptops and banks of Chrome books.
One of the biggest achievements during this time was leading the school during Covid! Although it was like steering a ship without a compass or rudder, the result for our school has been positive! The school management had to look at everything we did, and the way we did it, and this resulted in a far superior offering in curriculum, timetable, sports offerings, use of space, use of staff and traffic flow.
The school has also achieved many awards between 1997 and 2024; these are a few……
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a Proudly South African Award in 2003,
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Overcoming Adversity in 2022,
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academic awards in Language and Mathematics over the years,
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five pupils in the top ten in the country’s Horizon Maths competition in 2013,
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the National Science Olympiad for primary pupils in 2012,
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five pupils in the top fifty of the ABSA art competition,
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Astronomical National Award, for primary schools,
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in 2013, the Western Cape Inclusive Education recognition award,
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a second in the Metro Central Maths Competition in 2013 and several firsts in 2015,
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joint second in the Living Maths Olympiad,
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ASHOKA Changemaker School accreditation in 2015,
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a silver medal at the Cape Town Eskom Science Expo,
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won the Wonder League Robotics international competition in 2017,
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several medals at the Royal Philatelic Society’s annual competitions,
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several provincial, national and international chess players, athletes, judokas, gymnasts, cricket
and hockey players
• seven of our children spoke in the Parliamentary Chambers in 2012!
As I will retire at the end of this year, I have written the history of the school to ensure that all this is not lost. My thanks to all those, who, over the years have contributed their thoughts, experiences and factual information to this ‘epistle’, and I encourage those who still wish to do so, to email thaakirahfritz@pnps.co.za.
...and Woodwork
